Jon Stewart goes neo-con.

Thanks to James Taranto for TiVo-transcribing Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" interview with Nancy Soderberg. I was going to do that myself, but there was so much great material I couldn't decide where to start. Soderberg, a former Clinton aide, was there to hawk (dove?) a book called "The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American Might." You can just imagine what kind of a helpful, softball interview she was expecting from the man who has been ridiculing the "Mess o' Potamia" that is the Iraq war. But Stewart went all neo-con on her. A sample:

Do you think that the people of Lebanon would have had, sort of, the courage of their conviction, having not seen--not only the invasion but the election which followed? It's almost as though that the Iraqi election has emboldened this crazy--something's going on over there. I'm smelling something.

Much more at the link.

At one point, Soderberg lamely jokes: "There's always hope that this might not work." Oh, humor like that is sure to help the Democrats...

Anyway, I'm renewing my Stewart-love. It's great to watch him working through his ambivalence on camera, and self-deprecation is generally much better comedy than smugness.

UPDATE: You can watch the Soderberg interview here.